


What Freedom In Love

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-24
Updated: 2006-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-25 01:29:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1624355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Artemis and Orion had their story, and this time she's choosing how it goes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Freedom In Love

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks as usual to Chelsea for beta and support (and for not calling it cheesy too many times).
> 
> Written for Pouncer

 

 

She heard the sound of his horn long before she saw him -- of course she did, she heard everything in the woods that she ruled. Even if she were not a goddess, she could have heard him crashing through the trees, sending the birds and the hares and the deer scattering throughout the forest as the horn blew aggressively again and again. They weren't his quarry today, but it was natural for a timid beast to run from a loud one.

It was also natural for a maiden to run from a hunter seeking her favors, and natural for her to giggle as she fled. Artemis heard the giggles of her handmaidens tinkle through the trees like tiny bells, combining with the hunter's grunts of exertion to fill the forest with amorous music. She felt a smile growing; a bit of new sport would suit her fine.

With a thought, she put herself in the path of her favorite maid. "What's so exciting, Merope?" she called as the most beautiful of Atlas' daughters dashed from a copse of trees and darted through the clearing. "Come on, share the fun."

Merope collided with her mistress and clung to her, giggling. "Oh, you have to see him, Artemis."

"See who, darling?" Artemis laughed, petting Merope's hair and letting the girl's mirth spark her own. "Who's gotten you and your sisters into such a state? You're barging around the woods like bears rather than hunters."

"You'll forgive us when you see him, lady." Merope tugged at her buckskin skirts to cover her thighs, then pointed east, down the length of the isle of Crete. "The great hunter Orion -- lately come from the bed of Dawn, if you believe the gossip."

"I always do," Artemis replied with a laugh. Her heart beat a little faster at the name. Orion. Nearly a giant in stature, and nearly unsurpassed in his skills as a hunter.

Nearly. Her smile widened and she bit at her lip to contain her anticipation as she shouldered her great bow. There would always be one hunter that no one could surpass.

"Run," she told Merope. "Scatter your sisters and keep him running. I'll take care of the rest."

Merope grinned with the light of the hunt in her eyes. "Good hunting, my mistress," she said, and the next second she was gone with no trace of her passage.

Artemis closed her eyes, feeling her forest around her, an extension of her divine soul. She heard every rustle of every bird in the canopy and every creature in the brush. The branches arched over her, their shade her most sacred temple. She called to her forest, and it guided her. One ineffable moment later, she had the trail.

Her heart sang a paean as she ran, to the hunt and the moon and all the life around her. Orion, the song repeated, calling to her prey. Orion. And then Orion was there, running ahead of her, running with her without knowing it.

She stopped.

Her bow leapt to her hand, a silver arrow on the string.

The arrow sang his name as it flew, and Orion stumbled, and fell.

She sauntered up a moment later, standing over him as he groaned. The arrow had grazed his head, leaving him whole, but stunned, a deer in the moonlight. "I didn't hurt you, did I, my buck?" she said as she casually unstrung her bow.

He struggled to recover his limbs, his struggle doubling at the sound of her voice. Finally he managed to push himself up on his hands, raising his head to look up at her. "Goddess," he breathed and lowered his head in worship.

"Chasing my Pleiades is hardly worthy of you, Orion the hunter." She bent and brushed her thumb across his brow, restoring him with her blessing. "Come run with me. I'll show you how to hunt. If you think you can keep up."

His grin was wide and fierce as he looked up at her this time. Oh yes. She liked this one, and his touch seared her skin as he took her hand. "You won't find my stamina lacking, Huntress."

His promise was accepted with a smile. She waited indulgently as he blew his silly horn, and then they were running together. She knew just the stag for their first hunt together, and he followed her without needing any guidance. Her handmaidens sought to join them, but she warned them off with a thought: this hunt was hers. Now they hunted the same prey, but her blood and her bow still sang his name. Orion.

The stag fled, but never eluded them. They spotted and shot at the same instant, and their arrows pierced the stag's great heart side by side. As it fell, her own heart fluttered and jumped.

"Leave it," she told him, drawing him away, letting the Pleiades take care of the cleaning. Her voice was hoarse, but not from running.

He followed her, turned to her. For the first time in the eternity that encompassed her life, she understood how it felt to be the one hunted. When he came for her, she fell back willing into the cool moss. When he pushed up her skirts and buried his face between her thighs, she let him bring her down.

The pleasure pierced her, more intense than any she had known before with maid or man. Her limbs came unstrung, setting her free as though she was still running through the forest. When the tide receded, she drew him up onto her and let him pierce her again.

***

"Who is this man who never leaves your side?"

Artemis turned and took in the visage of her twin, burning with his most terrible look. She remained unimpressed. "I was wondering when you'd show up to mar my happiness."

"I make it a point to ignore your dalliances whenever possible," Apollo retorted, conveniently disregarding the number of romantic humiliations she'd done him the favor of letting him forget. "But who is this who has shared your hunt and your bed across the waxing of so many moons now?"

"Orion," she said simply, letting the name encompass everything he was to her. Her twin couldn't fail to see it branded on her heart.

"The Orion who left Eos weeping in her bower?" Apollo demanded. "This is the man, the mortal who had made you seem about to abandon your maidenhood?"

"He suits me," she said, smiling as his frown grew as thunderous as their father's.

"You can't mean it," he burst out. "You can't seriously mean to give up your maidenhood, to marry this giant boar of a mortal."

"And why not?" Her chin set in a stubborn expression that mirrored his.

"You are meant for no man," he said, his voice lowering to a growl. "The thought of a mortal binding you makes me sick."

"What is it to you, brother?" She stepped up close to him, her chest pressing against his until she could feel his heart beating with hers. "Can't you stand the thought of man having me? A man who isn't you?"

His face darkened, and the sky overhead followed suit. "You cannot love him, Artemis. No mortal can be worthy of such a treasure."

"I've deemed him worthy," she said, making him back up a step. "And if you object so much to my marrying a mortal, perhaps I can solve that problem. Perhaps I'll bring him before Father Zeus, feed him the ambrosia from my own fingers."

"I will never allow it." Apollo snarled, and then he was gone, leaving the brush burning in his wake.

***

Her bliss washed away her brother's harsh displeasure until she had forgotten his words. She had no reason to think of him at all until one night, when she slept, wearied from hunt and love, next to her mortal lover, seeking him in her dreams until suddenly he woke screaming at her side.

"What?" she shouted, clutching at him, trying to soothe his thrashing but finding him unresponsive to her influence for the first time. "Orion?"

At last he stilled, panting, and looked at her with wild eyes. "I dreamed, my love, but I wasn't with you. I couldn't find you, but the earth goddess was there and I felt her fury. She sent a beast for me, a great scorpion, and it overwhelmed me no matter how hard I fought. Its stinger pierced my belly, filling me with poison.

He clutched at his abdomen as though he could still feel the barb, and she put her hand over his. "It was only a dream," she said, filling him with her presence to banish the fear of the dream. "It meant nothing. You're safe here with me."

In the morning, she realized she had been lying to him. Orion sickened rapidly, the poison spreading throughout his body, real and potent. He reached up to touch her face as she nursed him, but his hand shook too much to find her cheek until she guided him.

She called to her brother, the healer, but he did not come. It was then that she realized the source of her tragedy, and wondered how she could have been such a fool. Fury swept through her, fueled by her fear and equally as powerful. She would make her brother pay, but first, she needed divine intervention. Her powers could match her twin's, but not Gaia's, as Apollo had known.

Orion was light in her arms as she lifted him and used all the power left in her to take them to Olympus. She set him down in the great hall, ignoring the stares of those around her, focused only on the god on the throne before her. "Father," she said, all pride gone as she pleaded. "Help him."

Zeus slowly shook his head. "No, my darling girl. I cannot intervene."

"Of course you can," she shouted, clenching her fists at her sides.

"He has broken your laws, and now he is paying the price, even if it was not your doing."

"Those were never my laws," she growled. "And I won't be beholden to anyone else's."

Zeus shook his head again, and at his feet, Orion groaned, the last of his mighty strength draining from him. Artemis felt it, and panic made her a more dangerous creature than she had ever hunted. Her bow was in her hand, and before anyone else realized what was happening, she drew it and trained her deadly arrow on the father of the gods.

"Heal him," she said, more calmly than before, surrendering to her madness. "Or join him in your brother's dark realm."

Shocked gasps filled the hall, and behind her, she heard a sword being drawn. Ares was here, damn her luck, though she had been blind to his presence when she entered. Her bow never wavered.

"Put it down, sister," Ares' voice warned. "Or I'll cut you in two, even though I'll hate to do it."

"You will not," said another voice, and she heard another bow being drawn. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the golden presence, and the tears running down her twin's face, as grief-stricken as her own. "Forgive me, sister."

"Heal him," she pleaded without moving.

"I cannot. Only our father can undo Gaia's work." A sword clattered to the marble floor behind her, and a moment later, she felt her brother at her side, his bow parallel to hers. "And he must, though I had begged him not to."

Zeus watched them both, then shook his head again, but it was a different gesture then. "You have always lived by your own laws, the two of you," he said. "I suggest you decide between you what those laws are, before we all perish in the crossfire."

Then he stood and bent over the dying man on the floor, passing his hands down the length of Orion's body. When he straightened up, Orion was gone. "Father?" she said, slowly lowering her bow.

"Go." Zeus waved his hand, sinking back onto his throne as though weary, or perhaps only weary of her. "The beasts of the world won't hunt themselves, you know. That's why I had you."

Artemis ran, pelting out of the hall on foot, out of the great palace and onto the heavily wooded slopes of Mount Olympus. The air was colder here, with none of the sweet warmth of their home on Crete, but the chill carried the sound of the horn as though it came from everywhere at once.

She smiled. Her bow was ready. It was time for the hunt.

 


End file.
